President’s report, 2015-16
It gives me great pleasure to be able to report on an active year for our now two-year-old association. During this year, we have held successful regional conferences at San Antonio, Texas, and Osaka, Japan, and now an international conference in Durham, England. We are very grateful to the hardworking committees who have organised each of these conferences, and their associated workshops programmes.
We have been working on two other major initiatives over the past year. We have held our first awards scheme, for dissertation awards, and conference travel awards – the ceremony celebrating the winners of these will be held on Thursday, immediately after lunch. Three people are receiving dissertation awards, and a further four travel awards were given. We hope that receipt of these awards, and the associated experience of attending this conference will be a landmark experience in the careers of those receiving them. We expect to conduct a further round of awards in two years time, leading up to the next international conference.
The other major initiative of this year was to begin the process of developing policies for and receiving applications from groups wishing to align themselves as affiliates of MMIRA, or to establish a special focus chapter of the association. We have received an application for affiliate status from the Japan Society for Mixed Methods Research; the policy on chapters is still in development, but interest has already been expressed by two groups – one based in the Caribbean and the other based on Digital Technologies.
During the past year, as a continuing service, our website has been improved and maintained, we have maintained a twitter account and facebook page, and we have produced a quarterly newsletter. The latter is in the process of being replaced by a weekly mail bulletin designed to keep members up to date with relevant information and opportunities for learning and working in mixed methods.
I would like to express my thanks to the executive committee and committee chairs who have served with me over the past year, for their support and willingly given assistance. Outgoing executive members include John Creswell, Beth Larson, and Leslie Curry. Continuing executive members include Pat Bazeley, Antigoni Papadimitriou, Cheryl Poth, and Mandy Archibald. Special thanks go to Burke Johnson, Executive Director of the Association.
And now, it gives me pleasure to pass the gavel to Tony Onwuegbuzie, as the incoming President, and to welcome Cheryl Poth as President Elect, Elizabeth Creamer as Secretary, and Mandy Archibald and Patrick Ngulube as Senior Board Members, and Adenkunle Oke as the new Student Board Member.
Thank you all,
Pat Bazeley
Retiring President.